Many through the years have forgotten and even neglected the pear. Visit most any former homesite and there by itself stands the mighty pear against the test of time still thriving. The USDA has many varities of pears available which are likely the best collection of pears available http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/20721500/catalogs/pyrcult.html . Pear scion wood can be difficult to obtain and you must be patient to grow pears. Why do you grow them and what do you do with yours? Most people find them to be low spray and forgiving of poor soil. The pear bears generously and you will find it easy to graft. If your not growing pears consider making a place in your orchard and you will be rewarded with sweet fruits and a full stomach.
Clark the pear council should hire you for their ad campaigns! Hopefully they get a solution to the problem before long and they can ship scion again. I had a large list that I sent in last fall.
Our fruit growing life started when we bought a very neglected hobby farm on the outskirts of Phoenix. On it was a sizable pear, plum, and apricot. All produced buckets of good fruit to our amazement. Having spent 40 years previous living in Phoenix we had no idea that such a thing was even possible here, sure citrus but not northern fruit. The general populationās opinion in Phoenix supported our assumption. But here it was, living proof in buckets of the most delicious fruit we had ever had. And quickly we started asking ourselvesā¦if we can grow this, what else can we grow??
That existing pear is like the old father of the property. Never needing much of anything. No pest issues, birds dont bother the fruit, 115 degree summers dont phase it. Pruning is minimal. The growth habit is almost perfect to produce the shape we might want. We pick its fruit in September and still today have lugs of them in cold storage. Good fresh, canned, or made into cider. A excellent valued piece of our lives here.
I just finished reading Morganās new book, The Book of pears. Hundreds of pages about pear history and varieties!
The writing is not all that great but this is the first āthickā book on pears in a long time. Too bad it costs $50.
I always like to think of pears as apples for grown ups.
Donāt tell that to my kids (2, 8, and 10). They will all take a soft ripe DāAnjou to any apple any day. For my money, it is hard to beat the melting flesh of the DāAnjou pear. I can eat more than one in a sitting. As a matter of fact, I have to keep an eye on my 2 year old when I give her a pearā¦she will eat the entire thing stem and all if I let her.
Pears have to be one of the most elegant of fruits besides a beautiful cluster of grapes. Think Dutch still-life. And they taste good!
Pears too are my favorite. In fact what started my fruit growing adventure was encountering a large old pear standing tall and proud full of fruit at an abandoned farm site on the Texas Hill Country. I was amazed that anything could be so productive and pretty with no care. I have always thought pears were very underated.
Hi all,
Please pardon my ignorance but I am clueless as to what I am reading. After the name ( sometime at the name) is listed I am lost.
Can anyone here give me a primer defining some of the termsā¦ Some are obvious, some I can Google, but I canāt stitch them together to make senseā¦ sorry 
see belowā¦
**Pedigree: P. ussuriensis x Bartlett **
**- Virus Biological Assays - Negative: NP-1996 PV-1996 **
**-raits: COLD HARDY, POLYPLOID (3x flow cytometry 2012)
Virus Lab Assays - Negative: PBCVd-2000
**- Virus Biological Assays - Negative: MM-1998 NP-1990 PV-1995 **
**Traits: FIRE BLIGHT SUSCEPTIBLE, LOW CHILL, QUINCE COMPATIBLE, DIPLOID (flow cytometry), HEIRLOOM, DNA Standard, CURATOR CHOICE, PARTHENOCARPIC
Thnax
Mike
Iāll take a stab at these for you. Are these from various entries?
**Pedigree: P. ussuriensis x Bartlett **
----Offspring of a cross of the Ussurian pear species and a Bartlett Pear, Ussurian pear is used for hardiness in breeding.
**- Virus Biological Assays - Negative: NP-1996 PV-1996 **
----It tested negative for viruses.
**-raits: COLD HARDY, POLYPLOID (3x flow cytometry 2012)
----Polyploid meaning it has multiple sets of chromosomes, I would presume 3x meaning itās triploid. If so, this would mean itās pollen sterile. Generally things are diploid, meaning 2 sets.
Virus Lab Assays - Negative: PBCVd-2000
**- Virus Biological Assays - Negative: MM-1998 NP-1990 PV-1995 **
-----More negative virus testing. I assume the initials are for the virus tested for and the rest is the year.
**Traits: FIRE BLIGHT SUSCEPTIBLE, LOW CHILL, QUINCE COMPATIBLE, DIPLOID (flow cytometry), HEIRLOOM, DNA Standard, CURATOR CHOICE, PARTHENOCARPIC
------- Can be grafted on Quince rootstock. Diploid meaning 2 sets of chromosomes so pollen is viable. Heirloom in this context probably means itās an old variety. Not sure about DNA standard. Parthenocarpic meaning it will set fruit without pollination.
Thanx
Yes ā¦
these are from several different ones. I just blocked and copied samplings of what sounds like gibberish ( because of my lack of knowledge, not that it is really gibberish) to me.
Obviously I know the dictionary meaning of some but ā¦
Mike
The Corvallis collection is wonderful. Last year (before the quarantine) they sent me some incredible budsticks of the Gorham pear.
ampersand,
Nicely done on the interpretation.
Iād add āCuratorās Choiceā are those varieties singled out from over 1000 cultivars by the curator of the collection, Joseph Postman, as exceptional.
Couldnāt help but like every comment.
Pears are for sure, extremely underrated. Clark is right too, very, very old pears can be found here too at old abandoned home sites. Many of which only the keen observer would even recognize as a former home site in the first place. In fact, often times, the old pear tree is the first clueā¦only after careful observation can old building footings etc. be found. Sometimes the odd surviving apple tree is there too, but never any other living thing that I can think of.
These old home sites are kinda hard to find around here, but I bet in Kansas they are much easier to spot.
Hereās a story that some may find a bit interesting:
Jeff,
That story reminds me of the nearly 400 year old Endicott pear http://www.ars-grin.gov/cor/pyrus/endicott.pear.html . A tree such as that is a genetic historic monument in my opinion.
In France they have it right. It is known as the āKingā of fruit!
What are you kidding me?! With color plates you are lucky that book is not $300. Shows how inexpensive detailed color printing has become. It was only a 300 and some odd page book however so that explains the lower cost than for a tome.
I find it interesting that at abandoned homes you can find the old pear tree and sometimes a seedling as well within a few feet. I know where a couple of these are but they seem to get pretty heavy fire blight strikes.
Some pears get strikes and no Iāll affect because of their growth patterns. Kieffer still gets Fireblight. I have never saw a Kieffer pear die from it.